Independent 22 - Tea and Oranges
by Aadler
Summary: Every group has its Zeppo … and every Zeppo has his moment.


**Tea and Oranges  
** (the Girl Like a Samba Remix)  
by Aadler  
 **Copyright December 2015**

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Disclaimer: Characters from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ are property of  
Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN; characters from _Person of Interest_ are property of J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot Productions, and Warner Bros. Television.

This story is a remix, done for Round 5 of the Circle of Friends Remix, of "Slayer of Interest" by JediButtercup.

 **Note in advance:** _Buffy_ ended in 2003, and Season 2 of _Person of Interest_ was nearly ten years later. I didn't feel like trying to reconcile the chronologies, so … handwavium! Just think of this as taking place about five years after _BtVS_ "Chosen", only in early 2013.

* * *

Season: post-series ( _Buffy_ )  
Spoiler(s): None for _Buffy_ ; "Prisoner's Dilemma" (S2-12) for _Person of Interest_

* * *

Fusco was having a little trouble following the conversation. Some of that was the concussion he hadn't admitted to having, some from the pain meds that he was liking _way_ the hell more than he really ought to. He shifted in the booth in yet another attempt to find a position that hurt a bit less, and focused on paying attention or at least looking like he was. Wasn't easy; the Professor didn't exactly blab — and neither did Tall, Dark, and Whispery — but both of them leaned heavy to cryptic, and Carter … Carter was a leader on the job, but here she was like him, someone who followed instructions instead of giving them.

And never with enough information, which was why he genuinely was trying to follow all the talk right now, because they _were_ talking, and he might actually have a chance to learn something, if only about them.

"— aware of the nature of the reports you made during the last several days," Professor Harold was saying. "Now that we know these various … encounters were coordinated, further observations and assessments might help us acquire a clearer picture of what was going on, and how we might wish to proceed. That is why I chose for us to gather in a group. Mister Reese?"

 _Had_ they ever all been together like this, all four of them? Fusco couldn't remember, his head felt like it was stuffed with hornets and wet paper towels. Wonder Boy glanced around the diner to confirm that nobody was close enough to overhear, and made a vague motion that — for him — was the equivalent of a shrug. "When I first started tailing Harris, he looked normal. And he _kept_ looking normal, even when the off-notes started to stack up. … Which didn't take long, what with us not being able to bluejack his phone, and having every bug or tracker I planted near him fade out after the first few minutes. And the meeting he and his colleague Summers had with the WRH people, the one we couldn't get _any_ surveillance on: some of the bodyguards for that were pros, most of them standard muscle and a few high-end operators, plus some I couldn't really classify but I wouldn't want to face them without weapons and the high ground —"

That was enough to pull a grunt from Fusco. Captain America here was the dirtiest scrapper he had ever seen, and most of the time he made it look easy. He also didn't seem to much care if he lived or died, so a statement like this meant more than it sounded like, and Fusco figured he knew pretty much _exactly_ what it meant. "Except for those things, though," Reese went on, "he seemed exactly like what he was supposed to be, a guy running through the last few days before his wedding. Final adjustments on the tux — he'd lost some weight since the first fitting, added some muscle in his upper arms — rehearsal dinner, bachelor party, grabbing time with his fiancée whenever _she_ could get free from wedding preparations …"

"Who's the bride-to-be?" Carter cut in. "We weren't in on this part, so there's a _lot_ of details we haven't caught yet, and no telling which ones matter."

"The prospective bride is one Dawn Elise Summers," the Professor put in helpfully. "Finishing a Master's at Columbia, in linguistics and cultural anthropology and some rather odd subspecialties of comparative religion. Preliminary information show that she and Mr. Harris have known one another since she was, perhaps, ten years old, so this was not a whirlwind romance by any means."

"And no funny pings on her?" Carter persisted.

"None that we were able to follow up on," Harold said in reply. "As you know, we found it difficult to use many of our … normal methods of operation." He looked back to the Suit. "Continue, Mr. Reese."

"That was it, really. It's just —" Reese stopped, and for a moment he looked … not embarrassed, not really, more like he was sort of at a loss. "The meeting with WRH wasn't good," he said at last. "Not being able to do any kind of electronic monitoring, that would be a big thing all by itself. And the bride-to-be's sister — this 'Buffy' Summers — that would be a whole … other subject. But Harris himself, everything about the guy says normal. Just about as average and unremarkable as you could ask for."

"So?" Carter asked. "Wouldn't be the first time you didn't know if one of your, your persons of interest, was shaping to be perp or victim. Sounds like this Harris hits the second category."

"That's how it looked," Reese said with a nod. "Except I didn't believe it. From the very first, I was trying to see under the act. I figured I was picking up on something too subtle to see straight-on, and I was ready to trust my instincts on this." He looked up. "Except I don't think it was instinct at all. More like memory."

That was enough to bring Fusco upright in the booth. "You're saying you know this guy?"

"I … can't be sure." Again the Suit looked not-exactly-embarrassed. A little uncertain, maybe, which for this character would probably _be_ embarrassing. "Something about his body language — how he moves, how he stands, how his shoulders set when he turns his head — it seemed familiar but I couldn't nail it down. It wasn't till yesterday that it clicked, and even now I'm not really certain about that."

"Really?" Professor Harold gave Reese one of his stiff sideways looks. "That's, er, unlike you."

"If it's the same guy, I only saw him for a few seconds," Reese explained. "Years ago, in Senegal, a warehouse in Dakar, by torchlight. I was on my way out after finishing … something else … and four men with clubs and crowbars were trying to take him down." Mister Spooky-Whisper's eyes went somewhere very far away. "They weren't having a lot of luck at it."

Fusco whistled despite the echoes that sent barreling through his skull. "So if you're right, this Harris is a serious bad-ass. You positive it was him?"

"No," Reese said. "I'm not positive about anything. Even what I remember, I have no idea what I was seeing."

Carter gave him a smirk. "So you finally ran into somebody as mysterious as you are." She laughed. "Welcome to my world. Like the view?"

"You don't understand," Reese said, shaking his head. _"I have no idea what I was seeing._ The closest I can get is Drunken Monkey kung fu, but it wasn't that —"

"Are you shittin' me?" Fusco interrupted. "Drunken Monkey … that's a bar-and-grill on Staten Island. Now I _know_ you're makin' this stuff up!"

"It's a variation of Da Sheng Men Monkey Style," Reese said, with that softness that was scarier than threats of murder from somebody else. "It uses stances and moves that make a fighter look clumsy, off-balance, uncoordinated. Too limited by itself, but mixing it with other disciplines can break your opponent's rhythm, throw him off his stride. But … no matter how random and disjointed it may look, Drunken Monkey is still a style, and the man I saw wasn't using any style at all. It was just _him,_ and it was working even though it shouldn't have."

While Fusco and Carter were still letting that settle in, Dr. Glasses observed, "Senegal would match the little I was able to learn about Mr. Harris before my search engines began …" He coughed. "… misbehaving. Alexander Harris spent more than two years traveling through various countries in Africa, and during that time he developed something of a reputation. On no less than seventeen occasions, he was charged with kidnapping or human trafficking, and in every case the charges were disproven or dropped. Another … contradiction to the mundane impression he gives."

Carter considered that with raised eyebrows. "He got off _every time?_ That has to mean payoffs, or disappearing witnesses, or both."

"On the contrary." Harold made a dismissive motion with one hand. "The accusations were repeatedly refuted by direct testimony from the young women he was accused of kidnapping. As for their disappearing: one of them is currently studying at the London School of Economics, and I've confirmed several others at various locations around the world. None of them appear to be under any kind of control or duress." He sighed. "Further mysteries, as if we didn't have enough already."

"Well, at any rate, that's all I got," Reese said. "Wonky electronics, one meeting with some seriously nasty players, and a memory that might or might not even be him." He glanced over. "What about your experiences, Carter?"

"No more'n I already told you," Carter said with a shrug. "Couple days of build-up, no real delivery. I know it was _something,_ but I've got no clue as to what."

The Professor cleared his throat. "I relayed your information to Mr. Reese as you called it in, Detective, but that was a less than comprehensive narrative. Perhaps … perhaps if you told the story to Detective Fusco, who was otherwise occupied at the time, we might be able to recognize points that have so far escaped us."

"Not a lot to tell," Carter said with another shrug. "For a little more than two days, I had a couple of girls keeping tabs on me. Twins, never together, taking turns following and watching me. Pretty good at running a light tail, actually —" She stopped, snorted. "— but, please. I _teach_ that stuff, you think anybody's gonna shadow me that long without me picking up on it?"

"Twins," Fusco grunted. "What'd they look like?"

"Young," Carter answered. "The first few times I thought they were fifteen, but now I'm thinking older but still looking fresh, maybe as far as early twenties. Black girls, maybe 5'5" and trim, complexion a shade or two darker than mine, natural hair and with no red tint to it. Mostly dressed casual, little bits of style now and then, and they knew how to use accessories — scarf, sunglasses, ball cap, light sweater, that kind of thing — to change appearance and be less obvious. I got no threat-vibes or weird feelings off them, but they had me covered _solid."_

Fusco frowned. "You say you never saw 'em together. So how do you know they were twins, and not the same girl?"

"Some of it was time," Carter told him. "Trail me to my apartment, pick me up whenever I leave? gotta be two girls, trading sleep time. Mostly, though, it was where I kept seeing them. I wasn't _letting on_ that I'd spotted 'em, okay? So I'll get on an escalator and my tail doesn't follow 'cause she doesn't want to stand out, only I get to the top and 'the same girl' is waiting to fall in with me, just enough scarf-cap-glasses difference to escape notice if I wasn't watching. And she wouldn't be panting or sweating, either, like she'd sprinted an alternate way to get ahead of me. Once, I timed catching a subway car so she got caught out on the platform, I _watched_ her as the train pulled out, but when I got out on my next stop, there she was down at the end of _that_ platform, blending with the passengers waiting to get on. You think she rode the top of the car like Batman? Nuh-uh: twins, couldn't be anything else."

Fusco nodded, keeping his expression thoughtful. Carter had a solid sense on what was possible and what wasn't, but maybe she hadn't realized the rules might be different in the Twilight Zone. "So these girls ever do anything but watch?"

"Not till right at the end," Carter answered slowly, a tiny frown-crinkle appearing between her eyes. "And I have no idea what that means, or even if it _was_ anything."

"Yeah?" Fusco squinted at her. "So what happened?"

"I'd had … an appointment with a lawyer," Carter said. "Evening appointment, personal stuff. Anyway, once it was over I got in the elevator to go down, and one of my twins got in with me. Which was the closest they'd _ever_ let themselves come to me, and I figured I couldn't afford not to expect this meant something. Right as the doors were closing, though, somebody caught them, and _another_ girl squeezed in with us."

"The other twin?" Fusco guessed.

"No, this was a white girl: long blonde hair, a pink dress, silver strappy sandals, earrings …" Carter stopped, her eyes on Fusco's. "I'm not making this up, okay? Her earrings, they were little unicorns."

Fusco guffawed, and then regained control. "Okay, yeah, there are people like that. Sorry. So then what?"

"Well, my tail says _'Harm!'_ , like she's really ticked. And the blonde girl says, 'What? I can do things, too.' And my girl goes, 'Yeah, but you're not supposed to be doing _this_ thing.' Neither one of 'em paying any attention to me, or seeming to, and I've got my arms crossed so my hand is inside my jacket and just touching my service weapon. And while they're arguing over who should be where, the elevator stops."

"Right," Fusco said. "So did they get off with you, or pretend to keep up the argument till you'd moved ahead?"

Carter shook her head in sharp negation. "No, I don't mean we got to our floor and the doors opened, I mean the elevator _stopped._ Between floors, no warning or alarm, just _clunk._ And now I'm backed into the corner and my hand is _on_ my gun, because this is a set-up if I ever saw one. And the girls seem to think so, too, except they're not paying any attention to me. They look around and they look at each other, and the blonde says 'Huh,' and my own girl says 'Yeah,' and then they settle into their own corners. Still not looking at me, just waiting."

Fusco spared a quick glance at the Suit and the Professor; yeah, they'd definitely heard this already, except Reese stirred long enough to ask, "They didn't say anything else?"

"Not then," Carter said. "After a couple minutes I tried the elevator phone, no connection. Then I checked my own cell: no reception. So I say something about probably the building people know and it's just a matter of time before somebody gets to us, and they just shrug. Then a minute or so later, my girl says 'Don't go looking at my neck,' and the blonde goes 'That's just mean, Rona, I don't do that anymore.' And then we wait some more, and after awhile Rona — if that was her real name — says 'Don't be looking at _her_ neck, either,' and the blonde girl just sulks."

"Not exactly fueling my chick-fight fantasies here," Fusco observed. "So did anything ever … you know … _happen?"_

"Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on." Carter stirred a packet of creamer into her coffee, taking her time, gathering her thoughts. "Maybe fifteen minutes in, maybe twenty, both girls look up all of a sudden, and then there's this noise from the roof, kind of a scraping, but I _know_ they looked up before the noise, and the blonde girl, Harm, goes 'Wow, that doesn't sound good,' and Rona says 'Maybe I should check it out,' it's like they rehearsed it but they're rushing their lines. Then Harm makes a stirrup with her hands and Rona steps into it and stretches up to go for the maintenance hatch in the ceiling —" She looked around at the others. "You know it's not as simple as Hollywood makes it look, they really don't want people climbing up there and messing around, but she pops it right open, and I'm just saying 'Miss, I really don't think you should —' when Harm heaves and Rona just _shoots_ up through the hatch and onto the roof."

Again Carter paused, shook her head. "There were sounds," she said. "Like Rona was stumbling around, bouncing off the cables. And something else, this _shnk, shnk, shnk,_ like … like when you've got a bag of ice and it's kind of melted-stuck together, and you use an ice-pick to knock it apart. That kind of sound. And then Rona drops down again, she's got this big splatter-stain on her blouse, not grease but this kind of blue-green color, and she says 'It looked okay up there, but maybe we should try the doors.' And she and Harm pull the doors right open, no problem, and they climb out and then stand back far enough that _I_ can get out without worrying they're too close. And then they trade looks and just … leave. And I haven't seen either of them since."

There were speculations Fusco could have made, and he had his suspicions, but he only asked, "You think somebody tried to get at you in the elevator?"

"At me, at them, I don't know." Carter shrugged. "I had my people pull security video, and check out the roof of the elevator car. Didn't find anything except some kind of sludge they can't identify, and the video …" The little pinch-line between her eyes was back. "It had been tampered with."

"Erased?" Fusco asked, figuring he already knew the answer to that one.

"No," Carter said, to his surprise. "Not erased. At least …" She shook her head again, sharply. "It showed me. It showed the girl who answered to 'Rona'. But no blonde girl." Her eyes were troubled. "The camera in the elevator used mirrors to cover every angle, it just plain couldn't have missed her, but she wasn't there. And that makes no sense at all. Even if I could figure out how they did it, _why_ would they do it that way? Why take out one girl and leave the other? Why do it _at all_ when it would have to be easier to just blank the whole video?" Her hands clenched in frustration. "The only thing that comes to me is flat-out showing off … but even that would be weird, since we don't know what was done or who did it or even what was supposed to be the _point."_

"Showing off?" Fusco snorted. "Messing with electronics, scrambled digital files … does that remind us of anybody? Like maybe some skinny Texas chick who starts out her day with a couple'a bowls of Crazy Flakes?" He didn't believe that, not for a second, but it might help steer them away from —

"No, Detective." The Professor sighed. "Any other time I would be thinking along the same lines, but … no."

Reese stirred in his seat. "Not entirely sure I agree with you there, Harold."

"Bear with me. When Mr. Giles and Ms. Rosenberg came to call on me … It was certainly unwelcome to be told that a previously unknown group was aware of our association with one another, and could locate and track us so casually." To Reese he said, "I believe it's entirely possible that, during the last few days you followed Mr. Harris, _he_ was using the opportunity to keep track of _you."_ He sighed again. "Their overall message, however, was … I believe it was meant to be reassuring: that we had attracted the attention of some very unpleasant people when we followed Mr. Harris to the WRH meeting, and we had been shadowed and protected until that could be resolved and the WRH people suitably discouraged." He hesitated a moment, coughed apologetically. "The thing is, Ms. Rosenberg knew quite a bit about some of the, the computer systems I use — information it should have been impossible for her, for _anyone,_ to obtain — and she had a number of questions about why I had chosen certain approaches and how it might have worked if I had done _this_ or _that_ instead —" He blinked at them, his expression even more frozen than usual. "We had quite an animated discussion; I was hoping I might learn something significant, of course, and I'm sure she realized this. But from some of the things she said, coding techniques that she referenced or suggested, just an overall sense of _style,_ I think it's highly likely that she was the original Salix680."

Fusco's "The what, now?" came in just ahead of the "And who is this exactly?" from Carter. Reese, though, either already knew or was pretending he didn't care.

"Salix680 was a legendary cracker — and it _is_ cracker, hacker is a misnomer — from the early-to-mid 1990s," Harold told them patiently. "She made a practice of penetrating systems that were supposedly impenetrable, and then sending the sysadmins advice on how to bolster their defenses. Pertinent, invaluable advice, almost revolutionary in approach. There are advanced IT programs now devoted entirely to studying the principles lined out in these … helpful little advice posts."

"Yeah," Fusco acknowledged. "So really smart. Like Root." He frowned as another thought struck, and his mouth kept going before his mind could force the _Shut up!_ through. "Early Nineties, though … I mean, I guess she might'a been a _little_ too young …"

"Actually, Ms. Rosenberg seems to be roughly the same age as Samantha Groves … 'Root'." Harold shook it away. "But, two things. First, in the earliest days of what would become personal computers, Steve Wozniak — one of the 'Two Steves' who went on to found Apple, Inc. — was well-known for being so adept at circuit design that he could accomplish, with a few dozen chips, what would require more than a hundred with more conventional designs. Salix680 was much the same with writing code, intricate and concise and capable of doing a great deal with very little. Root may possibly be every bit as formidable with computer code, but she is formidable in different _ways._ I can recognize her style, and that is different in structure and approach as well as in focus.

"Second …" He shrugged. " 'Salix' — she actually used a kind of alphanumeric quasi-code, Ess-four-ell-one-ex — is the genus for approximately four hundred species of willow trees and shrubs, and my female visitor introduced herself to me as Willow Rosenberg."

After a moment Reese offered, "Could be an alias."

"It isn't," Harold said. "A company I was familiar with attempted to recruit Ms. Rosenberg in 1997, while she was still a junior at Sunnydale High School in California. And her photograph is in the SHS yearbook … an actual physical copy, not an online version, I had it sent to me via expedited shipping so I could confirm. This is unquestionably a real person, and likewise the person who came to see me."

They thought about this for awhile. "So we had these people watching us," Carter said at last. "Protecting us, they say." Her mouth twisted doubtfully. "Could be, I guess. I mean, the girls that wound up with me at the last part, you _could_ read that as moving in when it looked like there might be a threat. Even if there's still no proof there was ever anybody up on that elevator roof." She glanced at Fusco, her eyebrows rising. "And that would go a long way to explaining what happened with _Lionel."_ Her smile was tight and skeptical. "Still not sure I believe that one, and that's with never getting anything _close_ to the whole story."

They were all looking at him now, and Fusco readied himself. "You know, she's right," Reese said, with that thousand-yard stare that made you feel like an ant under a magnifying glass. "You were a little sparse on details, Fusco."

Fusco looked back with as much _Tension? Me?_ as he could manage. "What details? I had a couple days off, and I didn't even know anything was going on with you guys till you finally got in touch with me." He threw out a little fishy eyeball of his own. "Since, y'know, you only share information when it's something _you_ think we need to know."

Another sigh from the Professor. "We did try to reach you, Detective. We left voice mails and texts apprising you of events and the need to exercise caution, and then made attempts to locate you when you didn't respond. It would seem that the same methods our … our apparent protectors used to block my database searches and put Detective Carter's phone temporarily out of operation, likewise kept you out of contact for rather longer."

"Yeah, well." Fusco waved it off. "Worked out okay, I guess."

The Suit was regarding him with one of those _Kill? or just maim? So many choices …_ looks that used to creep Fusco the hell out before he got so used to it that the effect, while still there, no longer registered as much. "You all right, Lionel? You're looking a little out of sorts."

The words were solicitous, but the overall tone was suspicious and even faintly challenging. Fusco pretended not to notice. "Hangover," he said. "Fell off the wagon a little, you know how it goes."

"Be that as it may," the Professor interjected, "we're still trying to make sense of the events of the last several days, and it might be helpful if you told us a bit more about your … day off, just as Detective Carter did with her own experiences."

"Not much to tell," Fusco answered. The nonchalant shrugs were getting harder to manage without the pain showing; he'd managed to avoid visible damage to his face, but he knew from experience that he was fielding a couple of cracked ribs. Not to mention he was starting to worry the gauze might not be enough, and the seepage from those claw-marks would start to show through his shirt. "But, whatever. I'd just come down from my apartment, and I was tryin' to decide if I wanted to go for Indian at Hungry Bird or just hit the corner store for some groceries" (right, the kind that came in six-packs) "when this kid came up and asked me for directions."

The Suit cocked an eyebrow at that. "And by 'kid', you mean —?"

"I mean a girl," Fusco said half-defiantly. "But she was still a kid. I was like Carter, thinkin' seventeen max, but now, okay, she _could've_ been one of these sweet-faced girls who doesn't really look grown-up till she's thirty."

"Name?" Carter prompted. "Description?"

Fusco had known from the first that he wouldn't be able to stonewall, so he settled in to give them what he was willing to tell. "Told me her name was Caridad," he said. "Don't remember if she ever gave a last name. Latina, I figured Brazilian for some reason, don't really know why, but she definitely had the Latin complexion and that little tilt to the way she talked. Built like a model, but more girl-next-door than Victoria's Secret. Dark eyes, hair …" He was getting more animated as he warmed to the description, but only part of him noticed. "… hair was that, like, that light shade of brown that can go sort-of-blonde with highlights or enough sun. Little curly, not like a perm but like a natural curl where she'd have to use straightener if she _didn't_ want it to curl. Wore a white blouse — no sleeves, little patterns embroidered on it in white thread — and these sort of printed culottes, dark blue on light blue, that looked like a skirt but wasn't really." He made a _what can I say?_ motion with one hand. "We got to talking, and, well, I wound up showin' her the sights."

The way Carter was looking at him was like she wasn't sure she was actually seeing what was in front of her. "A pretty teen-age girl decides to spend the day with you," she said at last, "and you didn't see anything … _off,_ about that?"

Fusco favored her with a level look that (he hoped) said he wasn't in a mood to be messed with. "Hey, God gives me a free beer, I don't go frettin' did a mouse maybe pee in it somewhere down the line."

"Was she seeking any kind of information from you?" Harold asked. "Or would you say she was operating more in the kind of watchdog function Detective Carter described?"

"No info-pump, no." Fusco shook his head. "It didn't even come out that I was a cop," (not in conversation, and not till later, and she'd already known) "that just wasn't what we talked about. And if she was bein' my bodyguard … well, nobody would'a ever suspected her, 'cause I sure didn't have a clue." (Not until later, again, and his heart constricted once more in the ache he knew would be with him for a while to come.) "So, no: no Bulgarian hit-squads, no ex-cons holdin' a grudge, no crazy gang-bangers hopin' to make their mark, none of the kinds of stuff we're always havin' to deal with." (Other things. Things even _these_ people might not believe. Or might, and decide they had to go jump into _that_ arena, and oh hell no.) "Mainly, we just talked. She was a nice kid."

"You talked," Reese repeated, as if the words felt funny in his mouth. "You and this young girl — maybe Brazilian, maybe not, but she looks like a fashion model — you showed her around the city, and the two of you … talked."

Fusco locked eyes with the other man, and for once he wasn't even tempted to look away. "I also took her ice skating at Rockefeller Center," he said flatly. "And afterwards we had sno-cones."

Folks like these — even Carter, though she wasn't as intense as the other two — weren't much for backing down, but they seemed to decide that there was nothing to gain by pushing. There would be follow-up later, he knew, checks to see if he remembered anything that might be important, but first they'd have to decide just what they were looking for, and if he'd been invisible to all their tech gear during that long, crazy day, Fusco figured he could stall and play dumb and keep his secrets till their curiosity faded.

Because they were _his_ secrets. This was his.

"The upshot of what Mr. Giles told me," Harold was saying, "was that we had stumbled into an area well outside our usual field of operation. And he and Ms. Rosenberg weren't trying simply to discourage us, it was more complex and specific than that. They gave me a list of individuals and organizations that I was to regard as dangerous, and rather than order or even warn me that I should steer clear of those on the list, they … requested, rather earnestly, that we contact them for advice and even aid if we ever found ourselves dealing with any of the, the listed entities.

"I don't think we can afford to assume they were telling the truth, but I honestly believe they were. And, while I find myself wanting very keenly to find out just what exactly was going on …" He shook his head. "The truth is that our resources, while far-reaching, are still limited, and I doubt that we could spare much time or effort to investigate something that ultimately did us no harm and genuinely appears to have been a sincere endeavor to keep us safeguarded from … issues, and circumstances, that we don't even begin to understand."

Reese cocked his head slightly. "Is this the long way of saying that we already have another … client, and we need to focus on that right now?"

"Very much so, Mr. Reese." Harold sighed. "I dislike neglecting something I don't understand; it feels irresponsible. I'm afraid, however, that we have other priorities just now —"

And then, for some reason, he paused and looked back at Fusco. "Unless there is anything you can add to what you've told us, Detective?"

It put Fusco back for a second, but only a second. Was there anything he could add —?

Oh, brother, was there ever.

How about: _this girl, maybe a hundred five pounds, can turn over a small car, but she has to stay on the balls of her feet when she does it so the weight won't snap those three-inch heels she stilts around on?_ Or: _she likes to dance, and she made_ me _dance, and while we were moving together in a samba, it actually felt like I was good at this?_ Or maybe: _when she laughs, it sounds like little silver bells?_

She smelled like orange blossoms and spiced tea, and tasted like coconut rum. Her singing voice was awful, off-key and all over the place, but she knew it and didn't care, she sang for the pleasure of singing. She wore lilac-colored polish on her finger- and toe-nails, which he knew because her shoes were open-toe. She was the fastest thing he'd ever seen, and the strongest, and the nastiest, she could tear Wonder Boy apart before he even knew it was happening, but you never saw it till she was ready to let it show.

… She could cry without her voice ever changing, look straight at you with tears running off her face to splotch her blouse, and what she was saying would still come out quiet and calm and level and devastating: "You were named truly, _querido,_ for you have the heart of a lion … but in my world, the courageous charge bravely to their destruction. I will not have this. I could not endure this. You must stay in your world, so that I will at least have the solace of knowing you are well." And then, still not breaking but so soft it was barely more than imagination, "Oh, _mi corazon,_ if only it could be!"

This was nothing like that thing with Karolina. This was crazy, impossible, everything _about_ it was impossible! The things she fought — fought, hell, the things she _destroyed!_ — weren't human, he'd emptied his '17 into one and barely made it stagger. And maybe she wasn't human, either, to be able to do the things she could do, or maybe she was what humans would be if they were something like a hundred times better. And what had sprung up between the two of them, as unpredictable and irresistible and shattering as a bolt of lightning … He wouldn't have shut that out if he could have, but _God,_ it hurt to feel this way, deep and total and _lost,_ and know it could never come to anything!

She was closer to Fusco's son's age than to his own. And Fusco himself would probably outlive her by far too many years.

Harold was still looking at him. It had only been a couple of seconds. Fusco pursed his lips, as if he were considering, and then said, "Nah, nothing to add. She was a sweet kid, but that pretty much says it all."

Harold and the Suit started in on something else, and Carter was putting in her own two bits, but Fusco felt himself drifting off. He'd have to make an excuse, get away, spend a few days to himself till he could do his job without showing he was hurt, because otherwise they'd want to know how and why. Suck it up. Do what had to be done. Get through the day, and then another one, and maybe after awhile it would start to feel normal to be so empty —

He tried to pay attention, or plan how he would deal with the coming days. Just below the surface layer of deliberate thought, however, faint but unrelenting, were the sound of tiny silver bells, and the scent of tea and oranges.

 _—_

end

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Special acknowledgment: "S4l1x680" comes from Diane Castle's massive (and massively entertaining) "the Secret Return of Alex Mack". Go. Read. Praise.


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